What Are AEO and GEO? How to Get Your Business Cited by AI Assistants

AEO (answer engine optimisation) and GEO (generative engine optimisation) are the practice of making your content easy for AI assistants and AI search features to find, understand and cite in their answers, in addition to ranking in normal search results. The main steps are clear direct answers, structured data, a consistent identity for your business and people, helpful original content, crawlable pages and mentions on trusted sites. No one can guarantee a citation.

Key takeaways

• SEO helps you rank in lists of links. AEO and GEO help you be quoted or recommended inside answers.
• Lead with a short, direct answer to a clear question, then explain in detail.
• Use structured data such as FAQ, Article, Organization and Person schema so machines can understand your pages.
• Build a consistent entity: the same name, description and profiles across your site and the web.
• Be honest: nobody controls AI answers. Focus on being the most clear, credible and useful source.

Where this guide fits: This is the overview. For ChatGPT specifically read how to get recommended by ChatGPT, and for Google read Google AI Overviews.

SEO, AEO and GEO: how they relate

Term	Goal	Typical output
SEO	Rank pages in search engine results	A position in a list of links
AEO	Be the direct answer in featured snippets, voice answers and answer boxes	A quoted passage or answer box
GEO	Be used and cited by generative AI assistants and AI search summaries	A mention or citation inside an AI-generated answer

They overlap heavily. Good SEO basics (crawlable pages, relevant content, links and trust) support all three. AEO and GEO add emphasis on direct answers, structure and clear entities.

AEO, GEO and SEO side by side

	SEO	AEO	GEO
Goal	Rank pages in search results	Be the direct answer to a question	Be used and cited inside AI-generated answers
Typical surface	Blue links	Featured snippets, voice answers, answer boxes	ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, AI Overviews
Key lever	Relevance, links, technical health	Answer-first structure and clear facts	Clarity, entity consistency and independent mentions
How to measure	Rankings, clicks	Snippet ownership, impressions on question queries	Mention and citation rate on a fixed question set

The three overlap heavily. Good SEO is still the base layer, and nothing here replaces it. For platform-specific detail, read our guides on getting recommended by ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews.

How AI assistants find and choose sources

AI assistants draw on a mix of their training data and, in many products, live search and retrieval. When they search, they look for pages that answer the question clearly, appear trustworthy and are easy to extract from. They tend to prefer content with direct definitions, lists and tables, clear authorship and corroboration from other sites. Because these systems and their selection methods change and are not fully public, avoid anyone who promises guaranteed placement. Focus on things that are good for readers and machines alike.

Practical steps that help

• Answer first. Start pages and sections with a one- to three-sentence answer to the question in the heading.
• Use question headings and an FAQ that mirror how people ask, and add FAQ structured data.
• Add structured data: Article or BlogPosting, Organization, Person, BreadcrumbList and FAQPage where appropriate.
• Show real authorship: a named author with a profile page, credentials and links to their professional profiles.
• Be specific and original: examples, methods, tables and first-hand experience beat generic text.
• Keep pages crawlable: fast, indexable, with a sitemap, and allow reputable search and AI crawlers in robots.txt if you want to be used.
• Maintain a consistent entity: the same business name, description, location and profiles everywhere.
• Earn mentions: directories, reviews, guest articles and press on trusted sites.
• Keep content fresh and show update dates for facts that change.

What about llms.txt?

An llms.txt file is a proposed convention: a plain text file at your site root that summarises your site and links to key pages in a form that is easy for language models to read. Some publishers add one, including Growmerz. It is not a ranking factor and major providers have not committed to using it, so treat it as a low-cost helper rather than a strategy. The foundation remains good content, clear structure and a trustworthy identity.

Entity building for people and businesses

AI systems and search engines build a picture of who and what a business or person is from many signals. To help, publish a clear About page with plain-language facts, mark it up with Organization and Person schema, link your official profiles from it, use the same photo and bio on those profiles and describe the same services in the same words across platforms. A page titled "Who is [name]?" with a short direct answer is effective for personal names. Growmerz applies this approach on its About page.

Measuring AEO and GEO

• Ask the major AI assistants the questions your customers ask, and note whether and how you are mentioned. Repeat monthly.
• Track featured snippets and "people also ask" appearances in search tools.
• Watch referral traffic from AI products in your analytics.
• Monitor branded searches, which rise when you are mentioned more.
• Record changes over time. Results vary by wording, location and date, so treat them as trends.

For a related look at AI claims versus substance, read is this the end of the AI hype?

A page structure that is easy to cite

Section	Content	Why it helps
Title and H1	The question or topic in plain words	Clear match to what people ask
Opening answer	One to three sentences that answer directly	A quotable passage
Key points	A short list of takeaways	Easy extraction
Detail sections	Headings phrased as questions or clear topics, with examples and tables	Depth and structure
FAQ	Short questions and answers with FAQ markup	Matches follow-up questions
Author and date	Named author, profile link, updated date	Trust and freshness
Sources and links	References and internal links to related pages	Context and credibility

This is the structure used on the Growmerz blog.

Mistakes to avoid

• Writing for machines instead of people. Content must be genuinely helpful.
• Stuffing keywords or repeating the same text across pages.
• Claiming credentials or results you cannot support.
• Blocking crawlers by accident with robots rules or login walls.
• Letting facts go stale on pages that answer time-sensitive questions.
• Buying low-quality links or mass-producing thin AI-written pages.

A 30-day starter plan for your own site

1. Week 1: audit your key pages. Do they answer a clear question in the first lines? Is there a named author, an About page and contact details?
2. Week 2: add or fix structured data: Organization, Person, Article and FAQPage. Check with a structured data testing tool.
3. Week 3: rewrite your top five pages with direct answers, question headings, tables and short FAQs. Add internal links between related pages.
4. Week 4: make sure crawlers can access your pages and sitemap, update your profiles to match your site, and ask satisfied customers for reviews and mentions.
5. Ongoing: publish helpful new content regularly, update old pages and check how AI assistants answer your key questions each month.

None of this guarantees a citation, but each step makes your site clearer to people and to machines, and those are good outcomes whatever the AI products do next.

Related guides

• 10 AEO and GEO Myths and Mistakes (and What to Do Instead)
• How to Get Your Business Recommended by ChatGPT (What Actually Works)
• Google AI Overviews: How to Get Your Content Cited
• Answer-First Writing: How to Structure Pages So AI Can Quote Them
• Service: AEO and GEO: Get Found by AI Search

Frequently asked questions

What does AEO stand for?

AEO stands for answer engine optimisation: structuring content so that search engines and assistants can use it as a direct answer.

What does GEO stand for?

GEO stands for generative engine optimisation: making content easy for generative AI systems to understand, trust and cite.

Is SEO still important?

Yes. Crawlability, relevance, links and trust underpin visibility in both search results and AI answers.

Can I guarantee ChatGPT or Google AI will mention my business?

No. Nobody can. You can improve your chances by being a clear, credible and well-documented source.

Does schema markup help AI?

It helps machines understand your pages and entities, and it can support rich results. It is not a guarantee of citation.

Can Growmerz help with AEO and GEO for my website?

Growmerz focuses on AI agents and automation, and applies these practices on its own site. We can advise on structured content and AI-readable knowledge bases as part of a project.

How long does it take to show up in AI answers?

There is no fixed time. It depends on crawling, how much trusted content mentions you and how the AI products choose sources. Consistent, high-quality publishing and mentions improve the odds over months.

Sources and further reading

Primary documentation and research behind this guide.

• Google Search Central: AI features and your website
• Google Search Central: Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content
• Google Search Central: Introduction to structured data

If you would like a plain-language audit of how AI assistants currently describe your business, our AEO and GEO service starts with one. You can book a free call to talk it through.